


build me up from bones

by mishcollin



Series: ends of the earth [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, Purple Prose, Season/Series 10
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-09
Updated: 2015-02-09
Packaged: 2018-03-11 09:49:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3322994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mishcollin/pseuds/mishcollin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Normal friends, Dean thinks, don't have sex then never talk about it again; normal friends don't bang passionately then carry on as usual. Granted, Dean supposes there's nothing normal about him and Cas or their….friendship."</p><p>Part 3 of Ends of the Earth 'verse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	build me up from bones

When Dean wakes up—well, more like _jolts_ up in half-groggy, nightmare-induced terror, but semantics—Cas is sleeping next to him. Cas isn't sleeping _with_ him, just…alongside him. He's propped in a sitting position with his socked feet crossed at the ankles, his arms loosely folded and a paperback book templed facedown in his lap. His shoulders are slumped, his head lolled slightly to the side. 

Dean blinks at him for a few moments, then rolls over onto his stomach, burying his face into his arms.

They kind of do this now, the sleeping near each other thing. They sort of satellite around each other in the same bed, an unspoken tension or distance bridging the physical space between them. Before he falls asleep, Dean'll usually be stretched out on the opposite side of the bed while Cas reads next to him, and every morning that he wakes up, it's the same; Cas sleeping in an uncomfortable position and a rumpled white dress-shirt, his brow pinched as though distressed even in sleep. Sometimes he's got a hand on Dean, on the planes of his shoulders, on the Mark, as though in unconscious protectiveness.

Dean watches him for several moments, still half-buried in the crook of his arms, and tries very valiantly not to picture Cas in any various states of undress, or anything else marginally inappropriate, but it's…hard (no pun intended), _not_ to think of Cas that way when they've gone there, busted open that Pandora's box and left it to fester without any apparent intentions of patching it up again. Normal friends, Dean thinks, don't have sex then never talk about it again; normal friends don't bang passionately then carry on as usual. Granted, Dean supposes there's nothing normal about him and Cas or their….friendship. 

They haven't done anything since Keystone, true, not anything like that. Or like before.

Dean has this sudden unbidden memory, staring at Cas, of the night at the motel in Rexford—the room's cheap lamplight bronzed in caramel, occasional white smears of headlights striping through the room, the rattling hum of the space heater; he can still _feel_ being there, even if he'd been more than a little drunk by the time they'd collapsed into bed. They hadn't done much that night, not really, but _God,_ Dean'd wanted to. That night he'd felt the twisting hollowness of Cas' absence like a sickness in his marrow, and he'd wanted to take him apart.

"I'm sorry," Dean had whispered, across the space between their two beds, and his right hand had dangled off the bed in an unspoken, outstretched invitation.

There was a moment's hesitation, the space of three long breaths, before the light had been obstructed for a moment, Cas hovering over him, one of his knees sliding to the outside of Dean's thigh—his hands, Christ, his wide, soft palm propped alongside Dean's shoulder. His sprained arm was bent and cradled to his chest, like a bird's broken wing; Dean's fault, Dean thinks. He hadn't been there in time to protect Cas, had almost lost him again, and he wouldn't be able to protect Cas from any of the other shit he had waiting for him down the line.

"Don't be sorry," Cas had murmured, and the golden light had caught the arch of his cheekbone, webbed in the tired creases in the corners of his eyes, and Dean's entire being seemed to ache, seemed to reach out for him.

He had. He'd watched his own wide, scrape-knuckled hands sliding up Cas' arms, gently cupping the shape of him that he could feel, warmly, beneath the cotton of his shirt, along the skin of his neck; he could feel the thrum of Cas' human pulse, frenzied and frantic, papery against his palms, and that struck him ridiculously, that _Cas_ was even possibly as fucking terrified of this as he was.

He'd caught Cas' gaze then—Cas was watching him sleepily, half-lidded, the slow drift of his lashes seeming an invitation if any, a weary submission to the bright heat that seemed to resonate between them.

Dean's hands tightened around Cas' shoulders and he gently pulled him in, pulled him down; he'd felt Cas' knee slot between his thighs as he blindly sought out Cas' mouth, relishing the sigh that seemed to compress between them when their lips finally met, like this was the soft crescendo that every note of their fucked up story had been leading to. Cas had whimpered against Dean's mouth, maybe in pain, maybe in neediness, but regardless, the sound had haunted Dean through the long hours driving home, the long, dark hours in the sleepless weeks after.

Through Dean's closed eyes, he could see the lamplight weaving in and out, like waves with Cas' movements, and maybe he was a little drunk and a little gone but this, _this,_ was everything.

"I didn't want you to leave," Dean had murmured into the crescent hollow behind Cas' ear, where the dark curls were already damp with sweat. He sealed a kiss there and he felt Cas shudder beneath him, like those words were his unraveling. He'd added, "I never want you to leave," and it had felt more raw than any confession he'd given in a church.

"I don't want to be apart from you," Cas had said just as quietly against the bolt of Dean's jaw. "I want to come home."

"I know," Dean had whispered, and he swallowed jaggedly, the words ready in his throat, _so come home,_ but he couldn't, they _couldn't_ , not with Gadreel, not with Sam on the line, not with—

Cas clearly felt the omission because he went slightly stiff and he'd sighed, pulling away, and Dean still clung onto him like a drowning man would, needing Cas the way he'd need a gasp of breath trapped underwater, needing Cas the way he always had.

"We can't do this," Cas had said, not looking at him, focused downward. His eyes had tripped over where his and Dean's hands were interlaced—when had that happened?—before tracing along the ugly pink pattern on the bedspread.

"Why not?" Dean had said; he knew why, but maybe hearing Cas voice it would make it easier to argue with.

"Everything hurts," Cas had whispered, miserable. " _Everything_ about being human. _This_ hurts too much, it aches in me like a living thing every single day, and I…" His Adam's apple bobbed in a quick, dry swallow, his eyes closed. "I can't do this with you, not when we can't….when I can't…."

"Hey," Dean had said, his throat strangely blocked, "Cas." But Cas had already been pulling away, spacing the gaps between them, and Dean saw the retreat for what it was, and he'd let him go. 

Cas had gone back to bed, and they'd said goodbye the next day at the gas station, and Dean had shut down. Didn't think about Cas anymore, not like that. He _couldn't._ Cas had forgotten it, too—at least, he'd never brought it up around Dean, never made one step in Dean's direction that wasn't strictly well-intentioned or neutral. Getting his grace back had seemed to ease the way of that, anyway. Perks of having a thing with a creature of the cosmos, or something.

Keystone had probably been a mistake, a desperate attempt to make up for lost time, maybe. Sometimes Dean questions if Rexford had ever happened, or if he'd fabricated it like some kind of drunk fever-dream. He likes to pretend it didn't happen—he gets embarrassed when he allows himself to relive the aching intimacy, the openness in him that had allowed Cas to crawl inside and take up residence in his head for days, weeks on end.

Cas shifts next to Dean on the bed, then blinks, his eyes rolling sleepily to meet Dean's. He seems startled, or maybe surprised, to find Dean is already watching him.

Cas straightens up from the headboard and his hand flies to his hair to mat it down, some weird, human tic of self-consciousness he must've picked up. "How long have you been awake?"

"Not long," Dean says, his voice gravelly with sleep. He clears his throat, then wets his lips. "You want coffee?"

"We should go into town and get breakfast," Cas says, stretching his arms above his head with a soft pop of his joints, somewhere in his lower back. " _Ah._ "

Dean peeks up at him warily, to where Cas' expression is contorted in either pain or confusion. "You alright?"

"Fine. I'm just…" Cas sighs, closing his eyes wearily. "My grace is….sick. It has a corresponding effect on me physically."

Dean frowns, processing this, and tries not to sound concerned when he says, "You should've said something."

Cas' mouth curls up at the corner wryly. "For what purpose?"

"Uh, wow, I don't know, because Sam and I are worried about you, dipshit?"

"You and Sam have no remedy you can offer me," Cas points out. "Therefore there's really no point in bringing it up."

"I hate when you do this," Dean grumbles, burrowing back into the sheets. "Wake me up in twenty hours."

Cas gives a soft laugh, and Dean's shocked to feel Cas press a quick, fond kiss into his hair, but he remains stubbornly still, refusing to react physically even as his face warms a little.

"How are you?" Cas asks. "Are the nightmares any better?"

Dean reaches out and twists a stray thread of the bedspread around his finger until it cuts off the circulation and his fingertip blanches. He tries not to focus on the Mark, an ugly curve of crimson vibrant against the white sheets. "Yeah. I think it might be getting a lot better with the grace therapy and stuff."

"Dean," Cas says, kindly. "You're a terrible liar."

"Hey, I'm a fantastic liar. It's one of my only real skillsets, actually. Ask Sam."

"You're terrible at lying to me," Cas amends. "Although most of the time, these days, you don't really seem to try."

Dean sighs.

"Fine," he says, after a few moments of Cas' patient silence, and rolls over to look at him. "The Mark's getting bad again. Not that that's really anything new."

Cas hums in his throat, half-concerned, half-thoughtful. "My weakened grace is aiding you less and less."

"Maybe I've developed like, a mutant immunity to it. Like Wolverine or something."

Cas frowns. "I don't think that's the case. My borrowed grace is thinning out. Soon it'll be depleted entirely."

Dean takes in the way Cas' shoulders seem to hunch inward with tension. "What does that mean for you?"

Cas sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose and squeezing his eyes shut. The mannerism is strangely human, as are a lot of Cas' mannerisms these days, which always has a weird unbalancing effect on Dean. "I'm not sure. Optimistically, I'll be human again. But I'm not optimistic."

"So what," Dean says, "you're just going to roll over and take that?"

"I won't murder another of my siblings, if that's what you mean," Cas replies, his eyes cracking open to gaze at Dean reproachfully.

"That's not what I said. But you could, I don't know, rage against the dying of the light or something."

"I've had a very long existence, Dean," Cas says, his voice seeming to crackle with tiredness, and his eyes slide closed again, slowly. There's a note of resignation in his words, which Dean already hates. "To everything, there's a season. Perhaps my number is finally up."

"Stop it, Cas," Dean says, but the slight rasp in his voice gives him away instantly. "Just…stop, alright? You don't get to just die. Hell, I wish I could bite it for good, too, but I don't get to. So neither do you."

"Isn't that selfish?" Cas asks with his eyes still closed, although there's no bite to the question.

"Aren't _you_?" Dean says, much more waspishly. "You're not even going to try to survive this, are you?"

"Are you?" Cas asks. He opens his eyes and gazes at Dean with his usual unnerving intensity. "Tell me, Dean, do you plan to survive this?"

Dean's jaw clicks shut, thrown for an answer.

"We're both selfish bastards, then," Cas concludes, shifting his shoulders so they align more comfortably with the headboard. "But I think we're entitled to that. It's been a long, long road, for both of us."

Dean exhales sharply, then breathes in twice as slow. He feels strangely jetlagged. "Jesus, it's way too early for this shit. Seriously, is it even eight?"

"Breakfast?" Cas suggests again, already moving to peel back the sheets.

"Yeah."

\--

They invite Sam to come, but they're effectively grumped out the door, which is pretty par for the course, given Sam's usual morning disposition. It's probably Dean's suggestion of breakfast place that does it, one that Sam usually gripes is too "greasy" for his sensitive, virgin palate, or something.

"A waffle never killed anyone, Sam," Dean says, to which Sam's dark, muttered reply is, "That _you_ know."

"Oh, yeah," Dean says, waggling his eyebrows mockingly. "Next case on the agenda: haunted waffle murders seven."

"Drugged by a sandwich, Dean," Sam says, his eyes still fixed to his laptop screen. "I'll bring it up as long as I need to."

"Bitch," Dean says as he ducks out the door with Cas in tow, and spitefully slams the door before he can hear Sam's yelled, expected reply.

The place is a short drive, only about five minutes into town, and they get seated in even less time, led to a table topped with a red-checkered, plastic cover and a smattering of salt near the windowsill. (Dean tries to overlook the irony in _that._ ) Cas settles in the seat across from Dean and takes up staring out the window, his hands laced together as he observes people in the parking lot.

"Coffees, sirs?" the waitress asks warmly, gesturing to the pot in her hand.

"Black for him," Dean and Cas reply at the same time, absently, then quickly try to play it off.

The waitress beams warmly, and Dean tries not to scowl as Cas tilts his head down to hide a tiny smile.

The waitress pours their coffee and heads back to the kitchen, leaving them in half-companionable, half-uncomfortable silence, and Dean watches Cas peripherally. Morning light looks good on him, Dean decides. Cas seems to draw light, in any case.

"So what's next for you?" Dean asks, just as Cas is bringing the mug to his lips to drink.

Cas frowns, then blows across the surface of his coffee. "I figured I would stay with you and Sam for a while, until I'm needed again."

"Needed?" Dean echoes.

"Until Claire needs my help again," Cas clarifies. "Or someone in heaven who I don't actively root against."

"Which is….everyone?"

"Mostly, these days," Cas says wryly. "But they _are_ my siblings."

"But still," Dean says. "This is…good for you, I think. Heaven's designated martyr isn't a good look on you."

"Thank you," Cas deadpans, taking another sip of coffee.

"Seriously, you need some time to relax, take some R&R, get your grace back in shape. Just…lay low for a bit, you know?"

"I should be searching for my actual grace," Cas says darkly, setting down his mug in punctuation. "But I assume that will require interaction with Metatron. I'd much rather devote my free time to helping you with the Mark."

"Yeah, well." Dean gets this tight, foreboding feeling in his throat, sticky and unpleasant. "Don't know how much good anyone can actually do."

Cas scrapes his mug across the table and looks at Dean disparagingly, licking his lips free of coffee. "We'll find something, Dean. I can almost guarantee that."

That's somewhat of a consolation, coming from Cas, but not much. Dean sighs, feeling his shoulders bowing inward with unvented tension, and the waitress takes that moment to step in and take their order. Dean orders waffles and bacon, Cas orders an egg sandwich, and she heads off again, leaving them alone again.

"You hungry?" Dean asks, which would be an innocuous question if it weren't Cas, but it _is_ Cas, so his answer's telling.

"Sort of," Cas replies, keeping his voice light, but Dean got really good at reading Cas' poker faces sometime around the purgatory debacle and finds it hard to believe him.

"That's a good sign," Dean says, forcing the optimism in his voice. "The more human needs you feel, the more likely it is that when the grace runs out, you'll be human, right?"

Cas surveys him sadly, his eyes seeming droopier than usual. "I suppose."

"It'll work out, man, seriously," Dean says, sliding his fingers along the rim of his mug. "It will."

"Metatron said I was a dead man walking," Cas says, his mouth twisted grimly. "And I'm inclined to believe him."

" _Fuck_ Metatron, man," Dean says with feeling. "I can't wait to split that skeeze's head like a melon."

"Poetic," Cas says dryly, taking another sip of coffee.

"Seriously, he's just trying to dick around with you," Dean says, tapping his temple. "Don't let him, Cas."

"Okay," Cas says, but he doesn't sound convinced.

The waitress serves their food, and Dean tries not to notice how quickly Cas finishes it.

\---

It's full on raining during the drive back to the bunker, sending the Impala's windshield wipers slogging, and when Dean pulls into the driveway, he's got a text from Sam that says, _Wasn't kidnapped for once. Went 4 groceries. Took Cas' car._

"Sam took your junker," Dean says, climbing out of the car. The rain's stopped now, leaving the air crisp and moist, the wet concrete gritty under his shoes.

"I've told you not to call it that," Cas says moodily under his breath, which has Dean grinning up the bunker steps. He pauses for a moment, keys in hand, and for a second, he's just thinking—thinking about Cas, about him driving, eating, sleeping, until Cas prompts him, confused, "Dean?"

"You remember the first time we met?" Dean asks, looking out at the distant sheets of rain, rippling along the horizon.

"You stabbed me in the heart," Cas says, almost in question, still uncertain as to where Dean's directing the conversation.

"Yeah." Dean snorts, and he feels himself smile. "You were such a smug little shit."

"I had reason to be," Cas says, and when Dean glances sideways, a small smile is pulling at his lips.

"Yeah, I guess you did," Dean says, thinking back to the shower of sparks in a Pontiac barn, raw and heated conversations about the apocalypse in Bobby's kitchen. The apocalypse. That, too, seems like a dream, or a fading nightmare. "We were so different, then."

"Not so different, I don't think," Cas says, gazing at him slantwise thoughtfully. He opens his mouth to say something else, maybe in consolation, but Dean beats him to it, before he can say what Dean knows he's angling for.  

"Cas." Dean closes his eyes, and he feels the shadow of solemnity descend over them. He takes a deep breath. "Seriously, you've got to know when to give it up."

"What do you mean?"

"You _know_ what I mean. This." He makes a disgusted, jabbing gesture to the red tip of the Mark, poking out from his rolled shirt sleeve. "This _thing._ There's no way out for me. This ticket is a one-way trip, and we both know it."

"I won't just _give up_ ," Cas says sharply, turning on Dean in a sudden stroke of anger. "Not on you."

"That's one thing being a hunter has taught me, at least," Dean continues with a humorless laugh, as though Cas hasn't spoken. "You know how to spot a lost cause, and you know when to jump the fucking ship."

"Dean." Cas claps a firm hand on Dean's shoulder, and Dean almost recoils, almost leans away from it, but inversely, he finds himself leaning in, resenting Cas' self-contained gravity. "There's a way out, _trust_ me. We just need to keep looking—"

"Do you even hear yourself?" Dean snaps, rolling his shoulder out from Cas' grip. "When will you and Sam quit lying to yourselves? This is _in_ me, Cas, like a fucking cancer, and it's not getting out. So just leave it alone."

"I refuse to," Cas says through gritted teeth. "Dean—"

"Why did we split up in Rexford?" Dean says, just blurts it out without thinking like a jackass, and Cas freezes and blinks, thrown by the rapid change in subject.

"Rexford?" he says, lost. "What do you mean?"

"I know you remember," Dean says, lowering his eyes to the wet cement crackling under his feet. He doesn't know if he can take it, in the chance that Cas doesn't.

Cas hesitates another moment, then seems to go curiously still in Dean's periphery vision.

"You mean the night at the motel," Cas says neutrally; cautiously. "What about it?"

"We almost…you know," Dean says, his eyes still fixed on the ground. His heart is pounding like a fucking bongo drum in his ears, hearing Cas acknowledge what had happened out loud. Usually he can't resist looking Cas in the eye for shit like this, but something about this is too heavy, too much to look in Cas' face. "But we didn't. You pulled back."

"Dean," Cas says quietly.

"I wanted you," Dean confesses, in a near-whisper, " _so_ badly. Jesus. Then we just…split. I just left you there, and it was like nothing happened."

Cas exhales slowly, almost shakily. "Do you fault me for that?"

"No," Dean says, closing his eyes. "I don't know who or what to blame. I just want to know why. Was it…." He swallows his pride, prickly and painful as it is. "Was it just me? Is that why…"

"No," Cas says, so emphatically that Dean looks up at him in guarded surprise. "No, it wasn't just you." He sighs again, more sharply, then looks out at the gray horizon. His eyes seem more silver, glassed in the light of the overcast. "I didn't think it was…prudent."

"Prudent for what?"

"I was in a lot of pain, Dean," Cas says, turning a weary gaze on Dean. "I thought…I mean, I just assumed that it was meant to be nothing, a distraction for the both of us, a one-night stand, and the thought of _that_ with someone I love so deeply, who I couldn't go even an hour without thinking about, I knew…" He hesitates, then sighs, fiddling with the hem of his pocket in agitation. "I knew once you left that it would kill me."

"A one-night…" Dean's still stuck. " _What?_ "

"Do you blame me?" Cas says, defensive. "Rationally, you must know that it wouldn't have worked out. That if anything, it would be long-distance, and painful, and—"

"I was willing to risk it," Dean says, not sure whether to be more shocked, pissed, or hurt. "I _wanted_ that with you." He drops his voice, half-hoping Cas doesn't hear when he says, "I want that with you."

Cas exhales again, definitely shaky this time.

"You told me to leave," Cas says, softly, his voice uneven. "I thought you were angry with me. That—that I'd done something wrong. That because I was human, you…"

Dean presses both heels of his palms to his eyes and breathes in. Jesus. His head is pounding.

"Fuck," he says. "Figures."

"What?"

"That a giant fuck-up of a miscommunication fucked us over." He gives a wild, sort of tremulous laugh, and his head is spinning again, and. Christ.

"I never tried to hide my feelings for you," Cas says, still avoiding Dean's gaze. His mouth presses into a tight, anxious line before he speaks again. "Even though I was uncertain how they would be received."

"You…." Dean fights the bizarre urge to laugh hysterically. "We're such fuckheads."

Cas turns to look at him quizzically; he still seems slightly guarded, as though bracing himself for Dean's reaction.

"Here, c'mere." Dean locks his fingers firmly into the lapel of Cas' coat and pulls him in—Cas makes this startled, undignified sound of surprise when their mouths actually meet before he softens and surges forward eagerly, returning the kiss with unfettered enthusiasm. 

For a few moments, it's soft, gentle strokes of their mouths, sharing each other's breath, relearning each other's movements, before Dean's hand moves from Cas' lapel and his arm slides inside his coat, winding around Cas' back and gently pushing their hips together. Cas rocks forward with way too much eagerness; his hands, dangling awkwardly before, drift up experimentally to touch. His fingers glide over Dean's jaw, his cheeks, his collarbones, his shoulders, his hips, his ass—to which Dean _definitely_ doesn't give a little jump of surprise, knocking their hips together harder so that they both gasp.

It starts to rain again at some point, like the romcom gods are pissing on them with glee, and it makes all their movements slick and rushed, until the rainwater seeps into the roots of Dean's hair and clothes and he starts to go numb from the cold. Cas' body heat seems searing by comparison.

"You wanna take this horizontal?" Dean asks before he can lose the nerve, in one of the spaces where their mouths part. His lips feel swollen, his whole body flushed and alight, and the fact that he's soaked through to the bone and sopping wet doesn't even consciously seem to register.

"I prefer to remain comfortably vertical," Cas says irritably, as though annoyed Dean had taken the time to ask, and he bites a kiss into Dean's lower lip. Dean rolls his eyes and pushes at his chest gently to get him to stop.

"That's not what I meant."

Cas' eyes, heinously bluer with the contrast of his darkened mouth, narrow fractionally in confusion before he blinks in comprehension, then nods, his eyes dropping to Dean's lips.

"Sweet," Dean says with a grin, pulling Cas into the overhang of the bunker.

They almost make it through the front door; Dean turns to kiss Cas briefly before they go inside, which turns into a not-so-brief kiss against the bunker door, Dean's wet shoulders crushed uncomfortably in alignment with the metal as Cas drags his mouth along the stubble of his jaw. Cas' touch is almost literally bruising, gripping him everywhere too tight, but Dean's too dazed and turned on to tell him to stop—he can barely catch a breath as it is, given Cas' own breathing stability is fucking impressive.

"Inside," Dean chatters at one point, Cas' breath hot on his mouth and something that's in all probability _not_ a piece of wood jabbing into his thigh.

"What about Sam?" Cas asks, and Dean's smug to hear the breathlessness in his voice. "Unless he knows—"

"He's gonna be back soon so either we do this fast or not at all," Dean says, breathing so fast his head spins. "You down?"

Cas slams him back into the bunker door in lieu of an answer, to which Dean groans pitifully at the ache in his ribs and fumbles with the slick door handle. There's something both arousing and terrifying in the idea that Cas could manhandle him into next Tuesday no problem, but Dean lets himself go with it, lets Cas lead the way as they stumble into the bunker sopping wet, sliding on the hardwood floors.

"Where?" Cas breathes, peeling off his jacket and leaving it to soak on the floor in a wet slap.

"Couch," Dean pants back.

"Bed?"

"No."

They reconvene on the living room couch half-clothed, Dean's wet shirt peeled off and strung somewhere along the back of a chair and Cas' jeans partially undone and halfway down his thighs. Dean wheezes a breathy laugh when Cas pins him into the couch cushions, and he struggles to undo Cas' jeans button with shaking hands.

"Let me," Cas says quietly, and Dean realizes with a stupid twist that he's _nervous._ He's imagined doing this again a hundred different ways, in beds, in showers, in the Impala's backseat, since Keystone, since Rexford, since, _fuck_ —purgatory. He wants to make this right, he wants to make it good, but his heart is crashing against his chest with nerves, so loud and heavy that he's sure Cas can hear it.

"We don't have to," Cas says, in that same soft voice, and he pauses in undressing, his eyes locked on Dean's—that same heavy-lidded, darkened look he remembers from the motel, the blue dilated to thin rings, somewhere between languid and primal.

Dean takes a deep, shuddery breath. "No, I want to."

Cas purses his lips skeptically.

"I do, I swear. I'm just…" Dean closes his eyes, presses his thumbs to his eyelids like it'll help him crawl away from Cas' heavy, searching gaze. "I don't want to mess it up. I want to get it right, you know?"

"We have plenty of time to focus on getting it right, Dean," Cas says, and Dean knows that's not true at all. He's sure Cas knows it too.

Dean props himself up from the couch and kisses Cas with a desperation that he's sure gives him right away, kisses him until it's Cas gasping into it, until they're both rolling their hips in graceless circles against each other in a blind need for friction. Dean's hands are locked on Cas' wet shoulder-blades, still slick from the rain, and he bites down, hard, on his lower lip when Cas fumbles with the zipper on his jeans, splays it so that some of the painful pressure on his dick recedes. Dean's downright gasping like a marathon runner by the time Cas' slips a hand in the waistband of his boxers and tests the length of him in his hand, his palm calloused, soft, way too assured, and Dean grinds into it shamelessly, so needy and raw for this that he feels like his pulse is singing.

Cas wriggles the rest of the way out of his jeans, still holding onto Dean, and then he says, like he's commanding armies again, "Pants off," and that almost makes Dean lose it right there, but he does what he's told, shucking off the wet denim and kicking it away, then finally his boxers, and Cas just pulls back and stares at him, long and hard, which Dean _hates._

"Stop," he protests, feeling a hot flush no doubt crawling up his neck; he feels helpless and self-conscious splayed out for Cas' perusal, but there's something deeper in him, more predatory, that craves it.

Cas just leans forward and presses a kiss to Dean's jaw, then drags his mouth along Dean's neck, his collarbone, the tattoo over his heart. Dean's head snaps back against the couch arm with a soft, groaned hiss as Cas' mouth finds his nipple; he flicks his tongue over it slowly, circularly, until it hardens, and Dean's fingers are somehow threaded in Cas' damp hair now, like it'll keep him from going off the fucking handle.

"This what they teach you in bible school?" Dean half-chokes out in a miserable attempt at a joke, hissing out another breath as Cas noses at the soft give of his belly.

"You could say I'm self-taught," Cas says, deadpan aside from a slight smirk, and okay, haha. Fuck, Dean thinks.

Cas' hand gently encircles the base of Dean's cock as he settles between Dean's legs, and Dean goes tense as a violin bow. He locks his thighs against Cas' shoulders with a short shout when Cas swallows him down in one stroke.

"Sssssshit," Dean hisses out in one breath, trying to keep it together when Cas starts to bob his head into the motion, because it's not like he's never had a _blowjob_ before, or even twenty or forty, but fuck, here he is, already edging, trying desperately to hold himself back, to make this last.

Dean could come like this, _so_ easily, but there's something else he wants, he thinks in a haze of desire and confusion, something missing. He tugs gently at Cas' hair to get him to stop, and Cas pulls off, looking confused, maybe a bit self-conscious.

"No good?" he asks, his hair fucked up and his eyes slightly glazed, and Dean shakes his head quickly.

"No, trust me, you're great. Just…." Dean guides Cas up by his shoulders and pulls him down again, finding his lips in the lengthening darkness of the room, and Cas gives a soft, warm hum at the contact. Dean can taste himself on Cas' mouth, can feel his hard, betrayed dick rubbing against Cas' hip, and Cas seems to get it; he drops his hand again, almost fumbling in his haste before jacking him off slowly, keeping their mouths connected. Dean's eyes stay closed but he can still see these spark-like sensations behind his eyes, like in the barn so long ago.

"We should've done this," Dean's shocked to hear Cas murmur, when they part for breath, " _years_ ago."

Dean's stomach gives this sickening twist at that thought, at the sheer time they've lost, dancing around each other, and now, at the end, they've finally slid into alignment—maybe a little too late, but the downhill slide, Dean thinks as Cas shakes above him, is worth everything.

"I think I'm going to—" Dean pants, as Cas' speed increases. "Cas, I'm gonna—"

Cas says his name then, reverent and fond, and it's like Dean comes on command, losing himself in the fierce rush of sensation before going lax, sinking back into the cushions.

Cas, still shaking, reaches down to jerk himself off, which granted, would also be incredibly hot, but Dean slaps his hand away. Cas barely gets out a word of confusion before Dean's hand replaces his, sliding along him in long, quick strokes.

Cas' arms, keeping him suspended over Dean, almost buckle under him, and he drops his head with a sharp gasp at the touch; Dean can see the fine trembling of his shoulders, taut with restraint, and Dean leans up to press his lips to the hollow of Cas' throat.

"It's okay, Cas," he says, a near-whisper in the dark. "I've got you."

Cas makes a soft, hitched noise at that, something between wild and desperate, and comes, bowing inward against the sensations. He relaxes when he winds down, sinking to press his body weight against Dean's, and for a moment they both breathe raggedly, too exhausted and stunned to move.

Dean buries his nose in Cas' damp hair, curling at the ends as it dries, and presses a kiss there. "You okay?"

Cas hums and nods, then says, "You?"

"Understatement."

Dean's hands rub in circles along Cas' back, the warm skin slippery with a mix of sweat and rainwater.

"We should've done that in Rexford," Dean murmurs, after several quiet moments of their mingled, heavy breathing. "Or before."

Cas sighs, and Dean can feel the soft fluctuation of his breath through his body. "The timing wasn't right. The timing's never right for us. I think it would have hurt us worse, then."

"You think it won't hurt now?"

Cas hesitates, then says, quietly, "I think we both don't have much left to lose."

Dean's breath feels punched from him at that admission; it's true, but it cuts at him to hear his own fears voiced.

"How much longer do you have?" Dean whispers, not wanting an answer. "Until it runs out."

Cas pauses, seeming to vacillate on whether or not to lie, before he says, "I'd give it two months."

Dean closes his eyes, feeling a tight, unpleasant feeling spreading in his chest. "We'll stop it by then. We'll find a solution. I'll kill another angel myself, if I have to."

"I forbid you," Cas says, "although the sentiment is appreciated."

Dean grinds his teeth in frustration, which Cas clearly hears but doesn't react to.

"When does it end for us?" Dean asks a moment later, not expecting an answer. Cas is quiet, waiting for Dean to continue. "For all of us, I mean. When do we get to just be… _done_? When we're stiffs in the ground, when we're salted and burned? It's just…" His eyes prickle treacherously, with anger, with indignation. "It isn't fair."

"What isn't?" Cas murmurs, more of a prompt for Dean to keep talking than a genuine question.

"We _deserve_ to get out of this alive," Dean says. "You, me, Sammy. None of us asked for any of this."

"No, true," Cas says. "But it had to be someone, Dean."

"Yeah, well, I'm tired of it being me," Dean says. "I've done my fair share. We all have. When does all this shit get dumped on someone else?"

"Dean," Cas says softly, splaying his fingers gently over Dean's chest. "You're different. Righteous. You've always been too special for the universe to overlook."

"Well, I appreciate that, but that's hogshit, Cas."

"Dean—"

"And you, you didn't ask for any of this either. You just got sucked into the Winchester vortex of shit—"

"Stop that," Cas says, much more firmly, poking his head up in consternation. "I made my own choices. I knew the repercussions when I chose to rebel, and I did it anyway."

"I want to live," Dean whispers, and Cas goes very still. The confession seems to breathe in the dark. "I want to survive this. I want to go on stupid road trips with you, settle down, sleep without a gun under my pillow. I want Sam to find a girl, have kids, raise a family, get a stupid dog, I don't fucking care. I'm so…." Dean breathes out slowly, feeling dizzy, like his bones are filled with water, dragging him under. "I'm so tired, Cas. I've been tired since I was born."

"You will survive this, Dean," Cas says, propping himself up on an elbow to parse Dean out in the dark. "I'll ensure that."

"What about you?"

"I can take care of myself."

Dean closes his eyes. His whole chest hurts and scrapes, like it's been filled up with rocksalt. "We still on for that road trip?"

"I'm ready whenever you are," Cas says, and he sounds like he's playing along just for Dean's sake, which Dean appreciates, in any case.

"Tomorrow," Dean says, lying out loud just so he can believe it, just for a moment. "We leave tomorrow, okay?"

"Okay," Cas replies, quietly into his shoulder, and Dean closes his eyes, listening to their pulses synchronize.

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from the Sarah Jarosz song.
> 
> Debated on abandoning this installation but figured it was worth a post.
> 
> Thanks, as always, to Nicole for beta'ing.


End file.
